Doctors couldn't figure out his condition, but he overcame it to lead team in historic season

Austin Wampler, a distance runner at Lincoln High School, during the Northeastern Knight Invitational Friday, April 27, 2018 at Northeastern High School in Fountain City.(Photo: Jesus Jimenez/Palladium-Item)Buy Photo

CAMBRIDGE CITY, Ind. – When talking about Austin Wampler, there’s a few things about the Lincoln High School senior that stand out to coaches and family.

One of them is his character; Austin’s never one to be rude to others. Another was his clean bill of health. Entering his senior year at Lincoln, Austin had never suffered a sports related-injury.

So, two meets into his cross country season, when Austin was a little disrespectful with athletic trainers, coaches and family, they knew something wasn’t right.

Wampler had blacked out during the final kilometer of a race in Shelbyville.

Their initial trip to the hospital, nobody could figure out what happened. A few hours later, at Peyton Manning’s Children’s hospital, Wampler was diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis, a serious syndrome due to a direct or indirect muscle injury, according to WebMD.

Wampler took a few weeks off, but was soon back out on the cross country course, and helped the Golden Eagles become the first team in program history to advance to the semistate.

He recently committed to run at Wilmington College, and is working to have the best track and field season of his life this spring for the Golden Eagles.

“It was pretty scary, at first,” he said. “Especially when it first happened, because nobody knew what it was. It’s never good when they take me from one hospital to a pretty major hospital, Peyton Manning’s. It was really hard seeing my mom in tears, and all my family.”

‘They didn’t know how to pronounce it’

Have a hard time pronouncing Rhabdomyolysis? So did Austin’s doctors. His mother, Tiffany, is a nurse, and said few people knew about the condition.

After the race at Shelbyville, they took him to the local hospital, but nobody could figure out what it was. They decided to take him to Indianapolis.

“I remember the nurses coming in and seeing it on the wall, and they didn’t know how to pronounce it,” Austin said.

According to WebMD.com, Rhabdomyolysis “results from the death of muscle fibers and release of their contents into the bloodstream.” Severe causes can lead to kidney failure, and in rare cases, it can even lead to death.

Austin said a few days earlier, during Union County’s Early Bird Invitational, he started feeling cramps in his calves. He threw up profusely multiple times the next few days, but thought about just running it off Saturday.

“In all the years of playing sports, he’s never had an injury, he never was out of a basketball game, he was never out of a race,” Tiffany said. “It was on a Wednesday, his senior year, he was running cross country at Union County. We didn’t know it until after the race was over, but he started cramping really bad in his leg, and that had never happened. He started throwing up profusely, and that’s never happened. I just thought he was dehydrated, because it was really hot that day, it was after a race.”

But another thing Austin is known for is drinking a lot of water.

“I drink probably too much water, if anything,” he said. “At least four or five waters a day, and when I run I drink up to about 10.”

‘Really a scary situation’

Before the Shelbyville Invitational, Austin told his mom his leg was sore, but not enough to keep him from running. He was off to a very good solid start to the race.

“There was about 130-something kids in the race. He was actually 14th,” Tiffany said. “I couldn’t find him, he was running towards the finish line, I was like, ‘Where is he?’”

As runners started finishing, Tiffany ran further and further from the finish line trying to find Austin. She finally found him with a coach nearby.

“I finally found him, and there was a coach behind him, and he said, ‘This kid looked like he was going to start running into the fence.’ He doesn’t remember the last mile.”

Austin finished the race 36th overall. It was the first time in his four years that he wasn’t the top finisher on his team.

“He looked a little rough early on, we get down to the last, probably 600-800 meters, it doesn’t look good,” said Lincoln head track and field coach Garrett Singer, who is an assistant on the cross country staff. “He gets to the chute, is bouncing off the wood railings, doesn’t remember anything, he blacked out the last K of the race, really a scary situation. He thought it was nighttime. His parents rushed him out to the hospital, then they took him out to Indy.”

Austin doesn’t remember, but was told he ran into a fence.

“I remember being on the ground, there was a bunch of people around me,” he said.

“Mom was asking me questions. I’ve never been a guy to get mad at all. I remember the trainer saying he was going to take me to the hospital, and I just remember going off.”

In other words, he was just not being himself. It was the side effects.

“This Rhabdomyolysis, sometimes it makes you real combative,” Tiffany said. “He started yelling, this guy came over and tried to help us, Austin started yelling at him, Austin never yells at people. He started throwing things, he started getting really, really sick. The doctors said, ‘You better get him to the hospital.’”

'I was just thrilled he made it through the finish line'

Singer remembers when he and head cross country coach Rod Puckett saw Austin that night.

Austin was back to being himself – which means he was more worried about himself than about others.

“We got out there that night, he’s already disappointed that he let the team down that day – in an early meet in the season,” Singer said. “We were like, ‘Austin. How are you? Are you getting better?’ And, (to him), it’s always about others, how did they finish?’ It just shows his character.”

Treatment for the condition is rehydrating to maintain urine production to help clean out the kidneys.

Austin missed the next three invitationals, but returned in time for the Union City Invitational on Sept. 2, when he finished sixth, again leading his team.

The Golden Eagles finished second to Seton Catholic by just one point.

It was an emotional day for Tiffany Wampler.

“I cried the first time he ran,” she said. “I was just thrilled he made it through the finish line. The first time he came back.”

Lincoln went on to finish second in the Tri-Eastern Conference race to Hagerstown, with Wampler earning All-Tri-Eastern Conference honors with a fifth-place time of 17:35.

One week later, they finished second to Hagerstown in the sectional, with Austin finishing 11th, and the following week, they made school history.

Austin’s 18:12 time at the Rushville regional helped Lincoln finish fifth as a team, qualifying for the cross country semistate for the first time in program history.

It’s only the second team ever in school history to qualify for the semistate, joining the 1982 boys tennis team.

It may have never happened that way without Austin sharing his story.

“When I went down with my injury, I noticed the guys started to get a lot better, because they could train with each other, work each other harder, because they didn’t have to worry about me,” Austin said.

“We had a meet in Connersville, we could tell how good we were going to be, but we had a really bad meet. Coach said he was upset, but said ‘I’m not going to yell.’”

During a runners-only meeting, Austin shared the severity of his story. He said he didn’t know if he’d survive. He said any race could be their last.

“The very next race we had, about every guy on our team had a PR,” he said. “We started running better every race. It was just really special.”

'There were going to be very few people ... that would work harder than me'

In his house, Austin and his sister Ashley have a trophy room from their success in athletics, and in 4-H.

Austin’s family has all been involved in athletics, but he almost didn’t run in high school.

Growing up, his family visited his grandparents right up the road, and he would often jog back, and always enjoyed it; he just was never as good at it as he is now.

“In middle school, my goal was to not get last,” Wampler says with a laugh. “I was really bad.”

Austin ran track and cross country in middle school, and decided to focus on basketball entering high school, but his basketball coach, Rodney Klein, encouraged players to try a fall sport.

“I didn’t really want to do cross country, but I ended up doing it, and now I love where I’m at now,” Austin said.

“… I always just kind of enjoyed running. When I was younger, my grandparents I lived right down the road. I remembered every time we went out to eat there, I would just sprint there and sprint back. Every once in a while, I would just go out on a run just for fun, I just always enjoyed it.”

That year, Austin fell just a few places shy of qualifying for the regional, and that only made him love the sport more.

He qualified for the regional the next few years, and to semistate this year. He’s also been an All-TEC runner twice.

In track and field, Austin qualified for the regional in the 3,200-meter run a year ago, and also runs the 3,200 relay.

“After track (freshman year), I ran really good,” he said. “After summer, I told myself I would make it to regional after that. There were going to be very few, if any people that would work harder than me at the sport. I just started developing a love for it, and it was just fun and determination that’s gotten me to where I am.”

“It was incredibly awesome. At the beginning of the year, my goal was to make it to semistate this year in cross country. I thought, at the beginning of the year, the only way I could do it was as an individual. Then we had a great season, and made it as a team.”

Jesus Jimenez is a sports reporter for the Palladium-Item. Contact him at (765) 973-4465, jjimenez@pal-item.com, or http://Twitter.com/JesusFJimenezPI